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Paul Ryan’s voting record: Big-spending conservatism

Ryan's voting record shows him to be far from a pure fiscal conservative. | AP Photo

Along with most House Republicans, Ryan voted in July 2011 in favor of the so-called Cut, Cap and Balance Act — the method favored by conservatives to raise the debt ceiling while reining in future spending. It included more than $110 billion in budget cuts in fiscal 2012, would have capped federal spending at 18 percent of the nation’s GDP, and would have required that the House and Senate pass a balanced-budget amendment to the Constitution that imposed a stricter threshold for raising taxes. Later that year, when the House voted on a stand-alone balanced budget amendment, Ryan was just one of four House Republican to vote “no,” telling POLITICO at the time that the measure didn’t go far enough to halt future tax increases.

And of course, his proposal to overhaul Medicare has become the Republican conservative template for addressing the nation’s huge spending on entitlements.

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The Club for Growth says Ryan doesn’t rank among the most conservative lawmakers on the Hill — he has earned just an 88 percent conservative lifetime rating on the organization’s congressional scorecard.

And the organization criticized the Ryan budget earlier this year — calling the plan a “disappointment for fiscal conservatives” because it did not balance the budget quickly enough and it waived the sequester — a set of automatic cuts required under the Budget Control Act.

Still, Chocola credits Ryan with shifting the House GOP toward the House Budget Committee chairman’s vision of a significant Medicare overhaul.

“I was in the House with him, and the Republican majority [at the time] would not have voted for his budget,” Chocola said in an interview. “The fact that he’s moved the conference in the direction of voting for meaningful entitlement reform is a big deal.”

And Ryan didn’t necessarily go all-in on TARP: On Jan. 14, 2009 — less than a week before Obama’s inauguration — Ryan voted to prevent the remaining bailout funds from being released, saying he feared that “the second $350 billion in TARP funding will go far beyond the original mission of preserving overall financial market stability, and instead will be used to fund a heavy-handed, neo-industrial policy.”

“Various industries have already marshaled their lobbyists for a claim on these public dollars,” he said. “And with our federal budget expected to reach historic levels this year, we cannot risk more public funds to be squandered.”

Though much of his policy profile in Congress has been dedicated to fiscal issues, Ryan has also consistently shown his social conservative bona fides in his nearly 14 years on Capitol Hill.

In 2006, Ryan joined nearly all fellow House Republicans to vote for a constitutional amendment that would define marriage as solely between a man and a woman. Ryan also voted to defund Planned Parenthood and has earned a 100 percent vote rating from the anti-abortion group National Right to Life.

Ryan, in 2005, also voted in favor of the so-called Palm Sunday Compromise that allowed the federal courts to intervene in the case of Terri Schiavo, a move meant to save the life of the brain-damaged Florida woman whose family had fought to keep her alive.

Still, Ryan in November 2007 joined the vast majority of Democrats to support the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, which would outlaw workplace discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. Ryan was one of 35 House Republicans to vote in favor of that bill.

Kathryn A. Wolfe contributed to this report.

This article first appeared on POLITICO Pro at 7:26 p.m. on August 13, 2012.

Completely true. If you think Republicans are going to change their colors you're stupid. For the past 30 years, I have heard, Smaller Gov't and tax cuts. I have seen Bigger Gov't and smaller taxes leading to HUGE deficits! What will change?? NOTHING! I'd rather have higher taxes so that we at least are not digger a deeper ditch.

I keep hearing that "Obama has cut medicare by $800B" Lets be Honest about this. The $800 B in cuts comes from the healthcare providers, not the seniors. Romney/Ryan are pathetic. Try to buy private healthcare at the age of 65 with $500 per month. I dare you.

By the same token, Ryan's budget takes much longer (until 2040) to eradicate the debt than the democratic alternative. I don't know why Ryan has had the reputation of someone serious on the budget, but I think that the scrutiny he receives now will begin to chip away at the idea he's serious about deficit reduction.